Thoughts on Writing from author Elizabeth Berg

For my writer friends – I LOVE this – a facebook post from one of my favorite authors of all time – Elizabeth Berg. Thanks, Elizabeth – I feel the same way about writing!

“Thanks so much to all of you who answered the question about what you’d want to know about writing. Many of the questions you had are directly addressed in the book I did about writing called ESCAPING INTO THE OPEN, available in bookstores and libraries. But just in general, I would say that the most important thing for me to keep in mind is that I write because I need to, and the most important (and lasting) satisfaction comes from getting something I feel onto the page in a way that helps me understand it better. I write to find out, is a way of saying it more succinctly. My best advice is to write because you love it, not because you want to sell it.

So many people ask questions about “process,” as though there’s a formula. There isn’t. One writes the way one falls in love, or decides what to have for breakfast. It’s changeable, intuitive, dependent on the state of the heart, mind and soul at the moment. For me, it works best to take a free fall into trust: my best writing always comes when I don’t plan it, when I don’t know what’s going to happen.

One of the reasons I’ve begun teaching workshops is that I recognize what a strong desire it is to write. In these instances, I serve as a catalyst to inspire women to bring what’s in there, out. I believe writers are born, not made. If it’s in you to be a writer, you can find a way to make it happen.”